In the autumn I moved to New York,I recognized her face all over the subwaystations—pearls around her throat, she posesfor her immigration papers. In 1924, the onlyAmericans required to carry identity cardswere ethnically Chinese—the first photo IDs,red targets on the head of every man, woman,child, infant, movie star. Like pallbearers,they lined up to get their pictures taken: full-faceview, direct camera gaze, no smiles, ears showing,in silver gelatin. A rogue’s gallery of Chineseexclusion. The subway poster doesn’t nameher—though it does mention her ethnicity,and the name of the New York HistoricalSociety exhibition: Exclusion/Inclusion.Soon, when I felt alone in this city, her facewould peer at me from behind seats, turnstiles,heads, and headphones, and I swear she worea smile only I could see. Sometimes my facealigned with hers, and we would rush pastthe bewildered lives before us—hers, gonethe year my mother was born, and mine,a belt of ghosts trailing after my scent.In the same aboveground train, in the samecity where slain umbrellas travel acrossthe Hudson River, we live and live.I’ve left my landline so ghosts can’t dial meat midnight with the hunger of huntersanymore. I’m so hungry I gnaw at light.It tunnels from the shadows, an exhaustinghope. I know this hunger tormented her too.It haunted her through her years in L.A., Paris,and New York, the parties she went to, peopleshe met—Paul Robeson, Zora Neale Hurston,Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein. It hauntsher expression still, on the 6 train, GrandCentral station, an echo chamber behindher eyes. But dear universe: if I can recognizeher face under this tunnel of endless shadowsagainst the luminance of all that is extinctand oncoming, then I am not a stranger here.